Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Square is for lames
Don’t worry, hate as I do the intolerable Crystal Chronicles, you will not find an oversized picture of me at the end of this post doing unthinkable acts to the offending disc. Instead, I hope my words can not only steer ignorant gamers away from this pointless title, but also impact the industry as a whole so we will not be burdened with bad games ever again.
I know I have talked about Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles on more than one occasion on this site already. Before it came out I was quite excited for the title. 4 player games are almost always a blast, and anything that requires a Gameboy to manage your resources has to be pretty cool, right? For all the hype and praise heaped upon this title, all I can assume is people are blinded by their Square loyalty or just enjoy games that should be given as gifts to blind horses.
The worst thing about this title is the quest you are partaking in is completely pointless. In most RPGs, one is rewarded with a better character the longer they play the game. In this game, your character evolves so very little there doesn’t really seem to be a point at all. For instance, there are only a few different types of magic, and, for some reason, they cannot be upgraded in any way. In the very first dungeon you will come across Fire and be happy, but you will then use that Fire spell in every dungeon in the game, with no chance of getting Fire 2 or Fira.
And it’s not like you forget about the inadequate combat system because the worlds you are traveling to are so breathtaking. There are two types of areas in this game: indoor and outdoor. And every single one looks exactly the same. Dungeons consist of walking to a certain point, hitting open a gate, then walking back to the gate. After 20 minutes of this you fight a boss of some kind. Very repetitive.
Even the inventory system is clunky. Square requires players to use their Gameboy so one would think the inventory system would be the shining beacon of the game. Instead, they made it as much of a chore as in any other RPG. Since you lose all your magic abilities at the end of each section, you are forced to manually re-equip them when you find them once more in another dungeon. It only takes a little while to go through the Gameboy and set up your command attacks again, but during this time your character neither attacks nor defends against enemies. Furthermore, if one of your 4 command spots is using a healing item, that item is not automatically re-equipped after you use it. So when you are in the middle of a battle and need to use two pieces of meat to fully heal yourself, you have to go into your GBA and set it up again, all while your character is most likely suffering some horrible fate at the hands of the boss.
While this may not sound too horrible, the game has a very small number of Phoenix Downs, so if you do die - and you will die often - there’s a good chance you will not be brought back to life by a friend. The only thing worse than playing this game is not being allowed to play it.
Also, fighting in the game is really boring. Hit A to either attack physically or via magic. That is it. I don’t play this genre, well, ever, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but something a little more complicated than hitting A when an enemy is nearby would be a lot more fun.
While the game can be an adequate distraction from life for an hour or two, after you realize there is no point to your quest the game becomes pretty much unplayable. FF:CC is repetitive and boring, and is a perfect example of how bad GBA/GC integration can be. I’ll probably play Four Swords in a few days to see if that actually uses the GBA correctly. I still don’t understand why FF:CC requires the GBA when they could have just had a small, transparent menu on screen.
I know I have talked about Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles on more than one occasion on this site already. Before it came out I was quite excited for the title. 4 player games are almost always a blast, and anything that requires a Gameboy to manage your resources has to be pretty cool, right? For all the hype and praise heaped upon this title, all I can assume is people are blinded by their Square loyalty or just enjoy games that should be given as gifts to blind horses.
The worst thing about this title is the quest you are partaking in is completely pointless. In most RPGs, one is rewarded with a better character the longer they play the game. In this game, your character evolves so very little there doesn’t really seem to be a point at all. For instance, there are only a few different types of magic, and, for some reason, they cannot be upgraded in any way. In the very first dungeon you will come across Fire and be happy, but you will then use that Fire spell in every dungeon in the game, with no chance of getting Fire 2 or Fira.
And it’s not like you forget about the inadequate combat system because the worlds you are traveling to are so breathtaking. There are two types of areas in this game: indoor and outdoor. And every single one looks exactly the same. Dungeons consist of walking to a certain point, hitting open a gate, then walking back to the gate. After 20 minutes of this you fight a boss of some kind. Very repetitive.
Even the inventory system is clunky. Square requires players to use their Gameboy so one would think the inventory system would be the shining beacon of the game. Instead, they made it as much of a chore as in any other RPG. Since you lose all your magic abilities at the end of each section, you are forced to manually re-equip them when you find them once more in another dungeon. It only takes a little while to go through the Gameboy and set up your command attacks again, but during this time your character neither attacks nor defends against enemies. Furthermore, if one of your 4 command spots is using a healing item, that item is not automatically re-equipped after you use it. So when you are in the middle of a battle and need to use two pieces of meat to fully heal yourself, you have to go into your GBA and set it up again, all while your character is most likely suffering some horrible fate at the hands of the boss.
While this may not sound too horrible, the game has a very small number of Phoenix Downs, so if you do die - and you will die often - there’s a good chance you will not be brought back to life by a friend. The only thing worse than playing this game is not being allowed to play it.
Also, fighting in the game is really boring. Hit A to either attack physically or via magic. That is it. I don’t play this genre, well, ever, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but something a little more complicated than hitting A when an enemy is nearby would be a lot more fun.
While the game can be an adequate distraction from life for an hour or two, after you realize there is no point to your quest the game becomes pretty much unplayable. FF:CC is repetitive and boring, and is a perfect example of how bad GBA/GC integration can be. I’ll probably play Four Swords in a few days to see if that actually uses the GBA correctly. I still don’t understand why FF:CC requires the GBA when they could have just had a small, transparent menu on screen.
// posted by Tom @ 12:09 PM 
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